Railway Current Affairs Quiz: 5 October 2026

The correct answer is the Department of Atomic Energy. UCIL is described as a public sector enterprise working under the Department of Atomic Energy, and it supplies the uranium that feeds the country's nuclear power programme. Its Diamond Jubilee Year, marked on 4 October 2026, counted six decades from its incorporation on 4 October 1967. The link with the department is visible in the jubilee programme itself: a DAE Technology Exhibition was staged for school students, and the Secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy, who is also Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, sent greetings. Option A, the Ministry of Mines, handles mineral administration in general but not the atomic minerals wing that UCIL belongs to. Option C, the Ministry of Coal, deals with coal and lignite and has nothing to do with uranium. Option D, the Department of Science and Technology, funds scientific research but does not own the uranium mining corporation. Only the Department of Atomic Energy fits.

The correct answer is Rs 130 crore. The Technology Development Board, which works under the Department of Science and Technology, agreed to give BigEndian Semiconductors of Bengaluru exactly this amount out of the Research Development and Innovation Fund, and the money is being routed through Optional Convertible Debt rather than as an outright grant. Option C is the trap most students fall into, because Rs 260 crore is the total cost of Project VeerAI, not the board's share; the board is paying half the bill, so the two figures must be kept apart in memory. Options A and D are round numbers that look plausible for a chip programme but match nothing in the agreement, neither the board's share nor the project's cost. A quick way to hold this is to pair the two numbers together: the whole project costs Rs 260 crore, and the Technology Development Board carries Rs 130 crore of it.

The correct answer is the European Free Trade Association. The Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement that took effect in October of the previous year was concluded between India and the EFTA countries, and it is the first free trade agreement India has with any economic bloc in Europe. Switzerland is an EFTA member, and the Swiss President gave the agreement his personal backing, which is why it figured so prominently in the summit statement. Option A is wrong because the European Union is a separate and much larger bloc, and India has no free trade agreement in force with it. Option C is wrong because the Benelux Union groups Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and is not a party to this agreement. Option D is wrong because the Eurasian Economic Union is a different grouping altogether and has no role in this pact. Aspirants should link TEPA firmly with EFTA and with the twin targets of investment and jobs that the agreement carries.

The correct answer is 549. The backgrounder states that the 2026 railway timetable speeded up 549 trains across the network, and it breaks that total into four bands. Twenty trains became faster by an hour or more, another 48 gained between 31 and 59 minutes, 105 gained between 16 and 30 minutes, and the remaining 376 were speeded up by 5 to 15 minutes. Option A, 376, is the figure for the last and largest band alone, which makes it the most tempting wrong answer, so candidates must read whether a question asks for the total or for one band. Option B, 459, and option D, 649, do not appear anywhere in the document. The safest way to carry this set into the examination hall is to remember the total first and then the four bands in descending order of time saved, because questions are set on both.

The correct answer is 384.2 MT. Coal India lifted 384.2 MT in the first six months of the financial year 2026-27, an increase of 27.2 MT or 7.6 per cent over the same months of the previous year. Option A, 357.0 MT, is the figure for that earlier period and is therefore the classic trap in a question of this type, because a candidate who remembers only one number often picks the base year by mistake. Option B and option D do not appear in the ministry statement at all. The pace of the gain rose through the year: second-quarter offtake went from 166.04 MT to 186.04 MT, a growth of 12.05 per cent, and September supplies alone climbed from 54.40 MT to 61.20 MT. Always learn the current figure together with the figure it is being compared against, since examiners ask for both.

The correct answer is 5,000 crore rupees. The Financial Fraud Risk Indicator, built partly from what citizens report on Sanchar Saathi, provides risk-based intelligence on mobile numbers that may be linked to financial fraud, and the ministry credits it with preventing suspected losses of more than 5,000 crore rupees. The intelligence is shared through the Digital Intelligence Platform with banks, payment service providers, telecom operators and law enforcement agencies, who build it into their transaction monitoring so that a suspicious payment can be stopped before the money leaves an account. Options A, B and D are figures that do not appear in the statement. Candidates should keep the two abbreviations apart: the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator is the risk signal itself, while the Digital Intelligence Platform is the channel that carries it to more than 1,600 connected stakeholders.

The correct answer is Nitin Gadkari, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, who inaugurated the conclave at Tent City 2 near the Statue of Unity at Ekta Nagar in the Narmada district of Gujarat. Option A, Harsh Malhotra, is a genuine participant but in a different capacity: he is the Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways and he addressed the inaugural session rather than inaugurating the event, which is exactly the distinction examiners like to test. Options C and D name ministers who hold other portfolios and had no role in this conclave. Candidates should attach the event to the correct ministry first, because a conclave on highways naturally belongs to Road Transport and Highways, and then remember that the cabinet minister inaugurated it while the minister of state spoke at the same session.

The correct answer is 110. At the Safai Mitra Suraksha Evam Samman Shivir held on 29 September 2026, the Secretary of the department felicitated 110 Safai Mitras in recognition of their contribution to cleanliness and hygiene at the department, an exercise meant to underline the dignity of sanitation work. Options A, B and D are round numbers that look plausible, and round figures are a standard trap in questions of this kind, so the exact count is worth fixing in memory. The same day also saw a health check-up camp on the campus for employees, outsourced personnel and sanitary workers, as well as a rangoli competition under the Kabaad Se Kala theme with drawing and poster events. Candidates should link the number of Safai Mitras honoured to the name of the shivir and to the date, since any one of the three may be asked.

The correct answer is five. The Environment Ministry announced that KJP21, a female cheetah aged 32 months and herself born on Indian soil, delivered a litter of five healthy cubs at Kuno National Park. With these five newborns the number of cheetahs in India rose to 60, of which 41 were born in the country. Option A, three, is wrong because no litter of that size was reported in this birth; the figure is a plausible distractor since cheetah litters often range from two to four cubs in the wild. Option B, four, is likewise incorrect for the same reason and does not match the count given for KJP21. Option D, six, overstates the litter and is not supported by the announcement. Only the figure five is consistent with the national tally moving to 60 cheetahs on the day of the announcement.

The correct answer is the United Arab Emirates. The Ministry of Defence announced that the India–UAE joint military exercise Mountain Guardian 2026 began at the Foreign Training Node in Chaubatia, Uttarakhand, with equal participation from both armies and mountain warfare as the theme. Option A, Saudi Arabia, is incorrect; India holds separate engagements with that country but this drill is not one of them. Option C, Oman, is a plausible distractor because India and Oman run well-known bilateral exercises across the services, yet the exercise named here is with the Emirati army. Option D, Qatar, is also wrong, as the release names only the United Arab Emirates as the partner. Aspirants should link the exercise name to the partner country, the hill venue in Uttarakhand and the mountain warfare focus, since question papers frequently pair an exercise with the wrong neighbour to test exactly this recall.

The correct answer is the National Statistics Office. The NSO, which works under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, carried out the first all-India National Household Travel Survey between July 2025 and June 2026 and released its key indicators through a factsheet. Option A, NITI Aayog, is the government’s policy think tank and publishes indices of its own, but it does not run large household sample surveys of this kind. Option C, the Reserve Bank of India, conducts surveys on consumer confidence, inflation expectations and bank credit, not on travel behaviour of households. Option D is incorrect because the Census Commissioner conducts the decennial population census rather than sample surveys on commuting. Aspirants should link NSO and MoSPI with household surveys such as this one, remembering also that the survey additionally served the data requirements of the Ministry of Railways.

The correct answer is 62 thousand kilometres. At the National Chintan Shivir the Union Rural Development Minister said the fourth phase of the scheme carries a target of 62 thousand kilometres of new rural roads, of which 20 thousand kilometres have already been sanctioned. Option A understates the target and no such figure was mentioned. Option C is a trap because it resembles the figure for roads built so far under the scheme, which stands at about 8.50 lakh kilometres rather than being the target of this phase. Option D inflates the target well beyond anything announced. Aspirants should keep three separate numbers in mind for this scheme: the length already built, the target of the current phase and the portion of that target already sanctioned, because examiners routinely swap one for another in the options.

The correct answer is the Institute of Teaching and Research in Ayurveda, Jamnagar. The clinical study was carried out by the Department of Kaumarbhritya, the paediatrics wing of this institute, which is an Institution of National Importance under the Ministry of Ayush, and the findings were published in the AYU Journal. Option A names another leading Ayurveda institute under the same ministry, which makes it the most tempting wrong choice, but the work reported here was not done there. Option C is also an Ayurveda institute of standing, yet it did not conduct this trial. Option D is a research council that works on yoga and naturopathy rather than the institute credited with this study. Aspirants should link the institute with its city, its status as an Institution of National Importance, the Ministry of Ayush and the name of its director, since any of these can be asked.

The correct answer is 897. The 17th All India Pension Adalat listed 897 long-pending grievances of family pensioners and super-senior pensioners for consideration, and of these 756 were settled on the day of the sitting, giving a redressal rate of 84.2 per cent. Option B names 756, which is the number of cases actually resolved rather than the number taken up, and is the commonest trap in this question because both figures come from the same sentence. Options A and D are not figures connected with this Adalat at all. Candidates should hold the pair together: 897 listed, 756 closed, 84.2 per cent redressed, at a sitting held in New Delhi on 5 October 2026 and chaired by Dr Jitendra Singh. The remaining cases were left open for follow-up in the days after the Adalat.

The correct answer is Hindustan Shipyard Limited, Visakhapatnam. The yard is building all five Fleet Support Ships ordered by the Indian Navy, and FSS-1 will be launched there on 6 October 2026 into the waters of the Bay of Bengal, eighteen months after its steel was first cut. The same ceremony will see the keel of FSS-5 laid and two yard facilities opened, the upgraded Slipway-4 and a 300-tonne Goliath Crane, which together raise the yard's building limit to vessels of 45,000 DWT. The other three options are all real Indian defence shipyards, which is what makes them useful distractors, but none of them holds the Fleet Support Ship order. Fix the pairing in memory: Fleet Support Ships go with Hindustan Shipyard Limited at Visakhapatnam.

The correct answer is the Koraput division, which is in Odisha and has been building aero-engines for close to six decades. The two-thousandth engine from this plant is being handed over on 6 October 2026, with the Raksha Mantri inaugurating the event and the Chief Minister of Odisha among those attending. The same occasion marks a second production line for Shakti engines, set up with an investment of Rs 218 crore to meet the growing requirement of indigenous helicopters. Options A, C and D are genuine Hindustan Aeronautics Limited locations, each with its own product lines, which makes them tempting; but the aero-engine milestone belongs to Koraput. Candidates should link the plant, the state and the engine in one go: Koraput, Odisha, Shakti engines.

The correct answer is 58.52 GW. That is the cumulative installed wind capacity India had reached by August 2026, according to the figures the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy issued ahead of Windergy India. In the financial year 2025-26 the country added a record 6.05 GW of wind capacity, and a further 28 GW is under implementation, which is the pipeline that is meant to carry the sector to its goal of 100 GW by 2030. Candidates should keep the three numbers separate: one is the stock already installed, one is the addition in a single year, and one is the capacity still being built. Options A, B and D are near-miss figures designed to catch a candidate who remembers the digits but not their order.

The correct answer is the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, known as DARPG, which has been institutionalising the Special Campaign since 2021 and sets the targets that other ministries and departments work to. Dr Jitendra Singh reviewed the progress of Special Campaign 6 at the DARPG office in Sardar Patel Bhawan, New Delhi, on 5 October 2026, along with the Secretary and senior officers of the department. The campaign's thrust areas, from scientific disposal of electronic waste to the clearing of pending references and better record management, are monitored on a single digital platform. Options B, C and D are all departments in the same ministry or in finance, but none of them is the nodal department for this campaign.

The correct answer is the purchase of mechanised sanitation equipment for self-employment. The case released by the ministry shows how it works: a two-member group project under the scheme financed a tractor-mounted Open Nallah Cleaner at a total cost of Rs 16,99,952, with a loan of Rs 10,24,964 and a capital subsidy of Rs 6,74,988. The beneficiary, who had picked waste for about twelve years in Guntur, moved to an organised livelihood with the machine and saw her monthly income rise from about Rs 8,000 to around Rs 18,000. Option C belongs to a different sanitation programme altogether, while options A and D describe kinds of support not covered by this scheme. The structure to remember is a loan plus a capital subsidy for equipment ownership.

The correct answer is Gujarat High Court. The notification of the Ministry of Law and Justice names Justice Sunita Agarwal as the Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court at the time she was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of India, and records Allahabad as her parent High Court. Option A is wrong because Allahabad is her parent High Court, that is the High Court she originally belonged to, and not the court she was heading when the elevation came. Option C is wrong because the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court named in the same notification is Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya, whose parent High Court is also Allahabad. Option D is wrong because the Telangana High Court was being headed by Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh, whose parent High Court is Jharkhand. Candidates should keep the pairing of judge and court separate from the pairing of judge and parent High Court, since both are given in the release and both are asked.

The correct answer is 93.26 per cent. TRAI's annual report records overall tele-density rising to that level at the end of March 2026 from 85.04 per cent a year earlier, which is why option A is wrong, as it is the figure for the end of March 2025 and not the one being asked. Option B is wrong because 89.88 per cent is the wireless tele-density covering mobile and fixed wireless access connections, a narrower measure that leaves out wireline connections. Option D is wrong because 151.47 per cent is the urban tele-density alone, a figure above hundred because many urban users hold more than one connection; the matching rural figure is 60.46 per cent. Tele-density means telephone connections for every hundred people, so the overall number sits between the urban and rural ones. Candidates should keep the four figures of overall, wireless, urban and rural tele-density clearly apart.

The correct answer is Japan. The environment ministry's release describes the Operational Manual as the manual for the India-Japan Joint Crediting Mechanism, and it was launched by the Ambassador of Japan to India, Keiichi Ono, with the then Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Tanmay Kumar. Options A, C and D are wrong because no arrangement with Germany, South Korea or Australia figures in this release; the mechanism named here is bilateral and rests on a Memorandum of Cooperation that India and Japan signed on 7 August 2025, followed by the Rule of Implementation adopted on 8 June 2026. The mechanism sits under Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement and is meant to bring low-carbon technologies and climate finance into projects in India. Candidates should remember the pairing of the country, the mechanism and the treaty provision together, since questions usually mix one of the three.

The correct answer is 34 districts. The release of the environment ministry states that Flying Squads have been deployed in 34 districts across the two States for the period from 1 October to 30 November 2026, and it splits the number as 18 districts in Punjab and 16 districts in Haryana. Options A, B and D are wrong because they do not match the figure given, and the split of eighteen and sixteen adds up only to thirty four. The districts named for Punjab include Sangrur, Tarn Taran, Firozpur, Bathinda, Amritsar, Patiala and Ludhiana, while those named for Haryana include Jind, Fatehabad, Hisar, Kaithal, Karnal and Kurukshetra. The deployment was ordered after CAQM wrote to the Central Pollution Control Board, and the squads report the ground situation to the CAQM Cell at SAS Nagar every day. Candidates should remember the total along with the State wise split.

The correct answer is more than 10.77 crore. The agriculture ministry's first comprehensive monthly review was told that unique digital Farmer IDs have so far been made for that many farmers under the Digital Agriculture Mission. Option A is wrong because that figure does not match the progress reported at the meeting. Option C is wrong because 14 crore farmers is the national target for digital integration and not the number of identities already created; progress is measured against that target. Option D is wrong because that is the number of fields covered by the digital crop survey in the current kharif season, a different measure altogether. The importance of the Farmer ID is that subsidy, Kisan Credit Card loans, procurement at minimum support price, crop insurance and disaster relief reach a farmer's bank account directly through it, cutting out paperwork and intermediaries.

The correct answer is Scale Without Boundaries. This is the theme chosen for the tenth India Mobile Congress, which is being held at Yashobhoomi in Dwarka, New Delhi, and which the Prime Minister inaugurates on 8 October 2026. The theme points to the ambition of the edition, which brings together more than 500 exhibitors and partners, over 600 startups and over 900 thought leaders on one platform. Option A, Digital India for All, names a different government programme and is not the theme of this event. Option C, Connecting the Next Billion, resembles the title of the Ministerial Programme at the event, which is 'Investing in the Next Billion Digital Connections', but that is one session and not the theme of the congress itself. Option D, Sovereign Telecom Future, echoes the CEO Roundtable titled 'The Sovereign Inflection and the Future of Telecom', again a single session rather than the theme. Only option B names the theme of the whole edition.